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This panel features four papers that use unique, large scale data to describe trajectories of people with disabilities, determinants of economic outcomes, and implications for policy. The first three papers leverage powerful administrative data to describe education, workforce, and program participation trajectories of people with disabilities. In “From Classroom to Career: Field of Study and Workforce Outcomes for Post-Secondary Students with Disabilities,” Ahana Samat (UT-Dallas) uses administrative microdata from Texas to describe post-secondary education and workforce trajectories for students with disabilities, focusing on how trajectories vary by disability type. In “Energy Booms, Health Shocks, and Disability Claims: The Impact of Hydraulic Fracturing on SSI,” Vinitha Rachel Varghese (Alma College) uses administrative data from the Social Security Administration to examine how environmental and occupational exposure to fracking affects applications to SSA’s major disability programs, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). In “Trajectories of Benefit Receipt among Young adults with Intellectual and/or Developmental Disabilities (IDD) in Wisconsin,” Jamie Koenig (University of Wisconsin-Madison) uses administrative data from Wisconsin to better understand patterns of employment and benefit usage for young adults with IDD compared to young adults without IDD. In the final paper, “Pathways to SSI Across the Life Course,” Freitag (University of Wisconsin-Madison) uses large-scale, nationally representative qualitative data (N=86) to narratively identify the life course turning points and trajectories that lead people to take up SSI.
Taken together, these papers offer novel insight into how disabled people navigate education, the workforce, and the safety net. Findings from these papers can inform policy conversations about how to improve services, supports, and policy for disabled people in the United States.